Who Said What? Confusing Scientists and Laypeople on Social Media

Abstract

The public widely uses social media platforms to access science-related information, yet their design encourages rapid scrolling and often conceals sender details. Building on social categorization theory, we hypothesize that limited sender profile information impairs users’ ability to distinguish between scientists and laypeople in science communication. In two preregistered online experiments (total N = 599), we used the Who said what? paradigm to investigate whether users can accurately categorize a sender’s role or whether role confusion occurs. Results indicate that participants were prone to confuse sender roles, particularly when sender information was not immediately visible. Role confusion decreased, and correct role categorization increased when individuals were exposed to sender information and when they actively accessed this information via clicking.